No. 5 midsize company: Hilcorp

No. 5 midsize company: Hilcorp

1of4Employees of Hilcorp celebrate the Dream 2015 plan, under which all employees got a $100,000 check for helping the company meet certain goals over the last five years.

2of4Employees of Hilcorp celebrate the Dream 2015 plan, under which all employees got a $100,000 check for helping the company meet certain goals over the last five years.

3of4An office building is going up on a full city block bounded by Main, Travis, Lamar, and Dallas on the former site of the downtown Macy's building.

4of4Employees of Hilcorp celebrate the Dream 2015 plan, under which all employees got a $100,000 check for helping the company meet certain goals over the last five years.

When Hilcorp's employees were challenged with hitting three huge benchmarks in five years, many thought the contest would come down to the wire toward the end of 2015.

But in April, Hilcorp hit all three goals with eight months left to spare. The prize was a $100,000 bonus check for every employee — prorated based on time of service over the last five years — regardless of job level or title.

The privately held oil and gas exploration and production company's Dream 2015 challenge required Hilcorp to double its oil field production rate, net oil and gas reserves, and equity value over five years. Hilcorp CFO Shelbie Dezell said it was no easy task, but the employees did everything in their power to make it happen.

"It was a stretch goal to meet that," she said. "We looked at it every month and talked about it every month. Then we had a huge celebration in the corporate office and in the field after we made it."

Dezell said receiving a $100,000 bonus check was a "life-changing" event for many of the company's employees. She said some used the money to pay off debt, others to fund college for their children, and still others to purchase new homes.

And while the Dream 2015 campaign has been a huge focus for Hilcorp, Dezell said employees practice the idea of teamwork on a much less-grand scale every day, creating their own "mini games" to spur certain teams to meet smaller goals within the company. She said these goals — both large and small — are helping steer Hilcorp through the current slump in energy prices, which caused additional pressures.

"We are subject to the same commodity price pressures that all companies are," she said. "With lower prices, that just created another goal for us to accomplish and prompted us to look for better ways to do things."

Hilcorp, which has 1,399 employees, 439 of which are in Houston, operates properties in regions that include Texas, Louisiana, Alaska and the Northeast.

Despite the backdrop of price pressures in the energy industry, the company's employees said the work atmosphere always remains positive, as the company was named the No. 5 top workplace in Houston among midsize companies by Workplace Dynamics.

"Hilcorp is a rare company that cares deeply about all of its employees. We are recognized for all working hard, and we all reap the benefits," one employee wrote in the Workplace Dynamics survey.

Now that the Dream 2015 challenge has come to a close, Dezell said company executives have started working on a new five-year vision plan.